Arcangelo

One of the world's freshest period-music ensembles, Arcangelo brings together exceptional musicians who display a passion for faithful interpretation that goes far beyond historical understanding. The group brings its dazzling technical ability to a program of works by J. S. Bach and J. C. Bach, as well as Handel’s mythological tale of unrequited love Apollo e Dafne, one of his most ambitious cantatas that set the stage for the brilliant operatic career that followed in the next 30 years of his life.

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.

Bios

Arcangelo

Since its founding in 2010 by English cellist and conductor Jonathan Cohen, Arcangelo has
surged to international prominence with thrilling performances of everything from Bach and
Handel to Gluck and Grétry. The ensemble is guided by a determination to treat works of all
periods and sizes with the full attention and intensity demanded by chamber music, an
approach that has attracted many fine solo recitalists and chamber musicians to its
ranks.

The ensemble has received many invitations to appear at major festivals and concert halls
in Europe and America, including London's Wigmore Hall, Vienna's Musikverein, Munich's
Prinzregententheater, Philharmonie Essen, Philharmonie Berlin, Musikfestspiele Potsdam
Sanssouci, Festival of Flanders, Aldeburgh Festival, and Edinburgh International Festival.
It has a growing discography of critically acclaimed recordings with Hyperion, Deutsche
Grammophon, and Berlin Classics. It received a coveted Gramophone Award in
2012 for Arias for Guadagni with Iestyn Davies and was nominated again this
year for Handel's Finest Arias for Base Voice with Christopher Purves.

Jonathan Cohen

Jonathan Cohen is one of Britain's finest young musicians. He has forged a remarkable
career with notable success as a conductor, cellist, and keyboardist. He is well known for
his passion and commitment to chamber music, which he expands to diverse activities such as
Baroque opera and the classical symphonic repertoire. He is artistic director of Arcangelo
and associate conductor of Les Arts Florissants.

Recent conducting highlights have included appearances at the Aix-en-Provence Festival
with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Edinburgh and Aldeburgh festivals with Arcangelo, and
Lucerne Festival with the Mahler Chamber Soloists; performances of Monteverdi's Il
ritorno d'Ulisse in patria at English National Opera; and a tour of Asia with the
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

This season, Mr. Cohen returns to the Glyndebourne Tour to conduct Mozart's Le nozze
di Figaro, and to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Irish Chamber
Orchestra. He makes debuts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, The Hague Philharmonic,
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and Tiroler Symphonie
Orchester Innsbruck. He also begins his tenure as artistic director of the Tetbury Music
Festival.

Mr. Cohen enjoys a close relationship with Les Arts Florissants; for its 30th anniversary
season, he collaborated with William Christie to conduct performances of Dido and
Aeneas (De Nederlandse Opera) and Purcell's The Fairy
Queen (Paris's Opéra Comique and Brooklyn Academy of Music). His recent
performances with Les Arts Florissants have included a double-bill of music by Charpentier
and John Blow in Paris and Versailles staged by Bruno Ravella. This summer, he conducted
Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie at Glyndebourne Festival.

In coming seasons, Mr. Cohen intends to focus his energies on developing Arcangelo, while
enjoying his collaboration with Les Arts Florissants and his rapidly expanding guest
conducting career.

Alina Ibragimova

Performing music from the Baroque to new commissions on both modern and period
instruments, Alina Ibragimova has appeared with many orchestras, including the London
Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Konzerthausorchester Berlin,
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mariinsky Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Hallé Orchestra, and all of the BBC orchestras.
Conductors with whom Ms. Ibragimova has worked include Sir Charles Mackerras, Valery
Gergiev, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Mark Elder, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, and
Richard Hickox.

Upcoming concerto performances include collaborations with the London Symphony Orchestra
and Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Schumann), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Hannu Lintu
(Berg), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner (Berg), WDR Sinfonieorchester
Köln with Ilan Volkov (Berg), Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Mendelssohn), Seattle
Symphony with Jakub Hrůša (Beethoven), The Cleveland Orchestra with Juanjo Mena
(Prokofiev), Hallé Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder (Mendelssohn), and Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra of Flanders with Philippe Herreweghe (Mendelssohn), as well as a tour in
Australia and New Zealand with Sibelius's Violin Concerto.

As soloist-conductor, Ms. Ibragimova has toured with Kremerata Baltica, Britten Sinfonia,
Academy of Ancient Music, and Australian Chamber Orchestra.

With regular recital partner Cédric Tiberghien and in solo and chamber music, Ms.
Ibragimova has appeared at venues that include London's Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam's
Concertgebouw, Salzburg's Mozarteum, Vienna's Musikverein, Brussels's Palais des
Beaux-Arts, and Paris's Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, as well as at the Salzburg, Verbier,
Manchester, and Aldeburgh festivals. Upcoming recital highlights include a complete
Beethoven violin sonata cycle in Japan and return visits to Wigmore Hall and the Théâtre
des Champs-Élysées.

Born in Russia in 1985, Ms. Ibragimova studied at Moscow's Gnessin State Musical College
before moving with her family to the UK in 1995, where she studied at the Yehudi Menuhin
School and Royal College of Music and was a member of the Kronberg Academy master's
program.

Ms. Ibragimova has been the recipient of many awards, including the Royal Philharmonic
Society Young Artist Award in 2010 and a Classic BRIT Award, in addition to being a member
of the BBC New Generation Artists from 2005 to 2007 and was recognized by the
Borletti-Buitoni Trust. Ms. Ibragimova records for Hyperion Records and performs on a ca.
1775 Anselmo Bellosio violin kindly provided by Georg von Opel.

Katherine Watson

Following graduation from Cambridge University, where she studied Anglo-Saxon history and
literature, Katherine Watson won a place at Le Jardin des Voix and subsequently appeared
with Les Arts Florissants in London, New York, Madrid, and Paris. She has an extensive
concert career and sings regularly under the batons of William Christie, Emmanuelle Haïm,
Stephen Layton, and Jonathan Cohen throughout Europe. She is the recipient of the
Glyndebourne 2012 John Christie Award.

Forthcoming engagements include the title role in Theodora (Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées); Apollo e Dafne with The English Concert and Harry Bicket and with
Music of the Baroque in Chicago; at Festspiele Baden-Baden; in Handel's Messiah
(Bilbao and Seville); and with the Hallé Orchestra. Ms. Watson will also sing in a BBC
Radio 3 production of Mozart's Requiem at St. John's, Smith Square.

Ms. Watson's recordings for Hyperion include Britten's A Ceremony of Carols with
Trinity College Choir and Stephen Layton, Brahms's Sechs Lieder und Romanzen with
Consortium, and Monteverdi madrigals with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen.

Nikolay Borchev

Young Russian baritone Nikolay Borchev has been a member of the Vienna State Opera since
the 2012-2013 season. Before that, he spent eight years with the Bavarian State Opera,
where he sang Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Guglielmo in Cosìfan
tutte, Dandini in La Cenerentola, Prosdocimo in Il turco in Italia,
Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, and
Barbier in Die schweigsame Frau, among others.

He has worked with directors Richard Jones, Peter Mussbach, Christof Loy, Andreas Homoki,
David Alden, Robert Carsen, Kasper Holten, Deborah Warner, and Mariame Clément, and sings a
large repertoire that reaches from the Baroque period through the classics and up to
contemporary music.

Born in Pinsk, Belarus, Mr. Borchev began his musical education at the age of 16 at the
Moscow Conservatory with teachers Maria Aria and Pavel Lisitsian. He continued his studies
in Berlin at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" with Heinz Reeh, Júlia Várady, and
Wolfram Rieger, and has won several prizes at international vocal competitions.

Pre-concert

At a Glance

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, BWV 1041

Bach's music for solo violin, both unaccompanied and in ensemble, attests to his proficiency on string instruments as well as keyboard. Although he wrote numerous violin concertos, only three have survived. Like its companions in E major and D minor (for two solo violins), the A-Minor Concerto is scored for an orchestra of strings alone.

J. S. Bach spent his early years in the city where his father's cousin—Johann Christoph Bach—was a prominent member of the court musical establishment. J. C. Bach left a small but choice body of works for keyboard and voice, including the concerto-like Meine Freundin, du bist schön (which the composer called a "wedding dialogue") from which this richly expressive soprano aria is taken. It is cast in the form of a chaconne with 66 variations.

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL Concerto Grosso in D Minor, Op. 6, No. 10

The dazzling variety and exalted invention of Handel's 12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, made them as popular in his time as they are in ours. The inherent drama of the concerto grosso form, in which two groups of instruments are pitted against each other, surely appealed to the veteran composer of operas and oratorios. In the D-Minor Concerto, two violins make up the solo concertino group, in contrast to the larger ripieno ensemble of strings and continuo.

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL Apollo e Dafne

This intimate Italian cantata is based on the myth of the nymph Daphne that Ovid relates in the Metamorphoses. Handel wrote it for the Hanoverian court in his native Germany at the outset of his career as the most celebrated opera composer in Europe. The delightful score shows his budding genius for melody, dramatic characterization, and scene painting.